Smoke
by LardenceLover
Summary: Years after the War is over, Ron and Harry have lost touch as Ron falls into life of an Auror and Harry all but disappears from the public eye. But a letter is sent, and Ron finds himself confronting the friend he lost when the Dark Lord fell. W.I.P.
1. One

There were assumptions one could make - and in fact many assumptions most people chose _not _to make - regarding the end of the second Dark War. An easy assumption was that Voldemort would be dead. Another possible assumption was that many magic peoples (both good and evil) would die with him. With these assumptions came the what ifs questioning them: what if Voldemort's death didn't end the war? What if there simply wasn't a way to rid the world of him and his evil? The wizard grew less and less human with each day that passed; could something not human, could something not _anything _at all, die?

The Order, of course, had considered this, and for a while it had seemed very likely. They'd had a million different plans to kill or capture Voldemort, but he was always a step ahead of them. The questions had begun then, tensely, no longer of _how?_ but of _what if?_ That time had been the worst. The idea that _Avada Kedavra_ wasn't even enough...

But one balmy, sticky July evening had put a stop to any of the questions. Voldemort was killed, and quickly - although it had taken a spell of such lethal force that it damn near took everything within a mile radius of it with him. _Scorched! _the reports had said. _Total ruin!_ Ron kept the news clippings in a box under the shabby green couch in his flat.

It wasn't as bad as all that, but it had been frightening. Not for the danger or the uncertainty, but for the unknown. No one at the battlefield that day, including the victor and the vanquished, knew what the fuck was going on. Total ruin, sure. Fear, though. Everything had been saturated in fear, and that feeling only intensified for them when the fear hadn't died with their enemy.

Ron should know. He'd seen Voldemort die with his own eyes. Ron should know. He'd fought alongside the Order, and insisted on going with the mission, although at the time he'd had no idea that it would be the Order's last. Ron should know, especially, because it was his best friend, Harry Potter, who'd obliterated Voldemort with a single curse.

What Ron - or anyone else for that matter - hadn't known at the time was the fact that Harry had gone to that particular battle certain of his own death. He'd, in fact, been planning it.

He supposed now, with calmness and an understanding he'd been severely lacking when he'd found out what had happened, that it wouldn't have been something Harry could have told anyone, not even his best friend. There were lives to think of back then, and nameless innocents to protect, and because of this, there was no argument to be had. Harry loved blindly and selflessly, and he could no longer count the number of people that depended on him, on the Order. Ron had felt that pressure as well, even if he hadn't had a prophecy hanging over his head. There were expectations, and they had to be answered quickly before people lost faith, or worse yet, before there were no people left to lose faith.

That's how it was. You either saved your own hide or saved the hides of the ones you loved.

A week after the end of the War, when Ron had woken up in St. Mungo's with a throbbing, blazing ache in his gut, he'd finally understood the look of certainty and acceptance on Harry's face when he'd mumbled the curse that had destroyed Voldemort. Even then, the meaning behind the look of shock in Harry's eyes when the curse was over and he was still standing had dawned on Ron. The huge blast of yellow light that immediately followed, as well as the long stretch of nothing after that, had still been a bit of a mystery to Ron at that time, but he'd understood the rest.

Harry had accepted death, and had been confused and scared when it hadn't come. Ron could have strangled the bastard if he'd been able to get out of bed and find him. But the doctor had told him, in a scathingly cheerful voice, that Ron's insides had practically been burned out by the backlash of an extremely lethal curse, so he mustn't leave his bed. And, he'd added with gusto, that Harry was still in a coma trying to recover from his own, much worse injuries, and was in no condition to be scolded.

Ron had seethed in anger and confusion until his family had shown up later that day; then his frustration had melted into a combination of relief and embarrassment. They were alive, but Mum was talking to him as if he was twelve years old, and Ginny keep snipping at him for nearly getting himself killed.

In short, the Weasleys were as usual: exasperating.

Later, Hermione, Draco and Dumbledore had come to visit, and that was much more important (and pleasant). Hermione had kissed his forehead and said softly, "thank God." Dumbledore had smiled in his usual way, although even then it had seemed a bit strained. And Draco had grudgingly admitted that he was glad Ron was still alive. _Very _grudgingly, but he'd said it just the same.

They had settled down and talked for what had seemed only minutes but was likely quite a few hours, during which the nurse kept clucking her tongue at Ron's group of visitors. He'd ignored her.

"But Harry. Is he okay? My family barely told me anything. Is he all right?" Ron had insisted, struggling to sit up even as Hermione tried to push him back down.

"He's fine, now would you lay down? You're not fully recovered yet, you know," Hermione had said, giving him a look that made Ron wonder fleetingly whether he'd done his homework. Somethings never did change, and Hermione's glare was one of them.

"I'm fine, now get off. What happened? Professor?"

"Ron, if you don't _lay down_--"

"Harry," Dumbledore had injected, prying Hermione's firm grip from Ron's shaking shoulders, "Is still in a coma, but expected to awaken within the next few days to a week. I'm afraid Harry had taken it upon himself to put an end to Voldemort's reign once and for all and--"

"Decided to blow himself up along with Voldemort, the raving git," Draco had drawled, although there was a hint of worry somewhere around the black rings under his eyes; very well hidden, naturally, but Ron hadn't missed it entirely.

He'd frowned, twisting the sheets into his fists. "He used a _kamikazi _spell?"

Hermione had glanced worriedly at Ron's tightened fists, but Draco had appeared downright amused. "Terribly heroic of him, wasn't it?"

"Shut up," Ron had snapped, his eyes searching Dumbledore's face, who, to his credit, was trying his best to keep a straight face.

"It would seem so." Long, spindly fingers had played with Dumbledore's equally long white beard. "Developed by himself, and untested for all that. But I gather he must have been fairly sure of his success, to risk it while so many of you were with him."

Hermione had pursed her lips, but kept her tone as nuetral as she could manage; she'd been angry with Harry too, but always took more effort to hide her rage than Ron ever bothered to. "And I'm to assume he had no idea the spell would echo."

"In normal circumstances, it would not have," Dumbledore had conceded with a tilt of his head, and Ron's stomach had lurched a little at those words. "I dare say that Harry did not expect to survive the spell long enough to feel any echo. Nor did he truly seem to understand his own power, concerning that particular spell."

And there, inherently, was another assumption, and one that Ron bitterly resented even now, five years after it had all taken place, and that people made _constantly_.

The completely idiotic assumption that Harry - or any of them - had ever understood anything about his power at all.


	2. Two

Things clicked, every now and then. Something would trigger, and memories would go racing through his brain in flashes and flickers of helpless emotions and hopeless images. It was draining and happening more and more frequently, but Ron never mentioned it to anyone. Not to Hermione when they sat at their desks in the Auror's office of the Ministry, shifting papers and sharing mugs of coffee at eight o'clock at night while working late. Not to Draco when they were out on the field investigating rumors of Dark artifacts in a less-than-reputable wizarding establishment in downtown London, (with which Draco was, of course, always familar). Not to Ginny when they were having dinner with their fussing mother and retired, telephone-tinkering father, arguing over who was going to do the dishes as though they were children again. Not to Neville or Seamus or Lupin or the other many number of people who would either worry over it or just not understand at all.

How does one look into the eyes of those who lived with fear and betrayal like an unwanted bed partner for years, and dredge up the things that they, nowdays, preferred to pretend hadn't happened in the first place? Voldemort (hell, even Ron still had a hard time saying that name, and he'd _faced _him) was dead. The Death Eaters were ruined. But no one spoke about them. The white elephant, the fairy tale people wanted their children to believe was simply _not true_. All because it kept the fear away, and it kept them blind to anything that might ever happen to them again.

Ron thought of Harry.

Everything had changed so much. Harry wasn't in the papers anymore. Harry didn't work with the Aurors. Ron hadn't seen Harry in years. They didn't talk, not really, although Ron owled occasionally, randomly, and sometimes, if he was lucky, Harry owled him back. Ron had too much to say about his bustling, shaken puzzle of a life, and Harry had nothing to say, other than that he was happy for Ron. Hermione admitted to owling him regularly as well with little results, and Draco had even gone as far as to try to visit Harry once, but he refused to talk about it, bristling anytime anyone brought it up. He was disturbed by it, quite obviously, which didn't do anything to help squelch Ron's worry when he considered his former best mate.

He thought, perhaps, that that was what had shaken everyone most. Not what the War had done to Harry, because Harry had still been himself then. Stressed, frightened, rigid, and paranoid, but himself. In there, somewhere, anyway. But after it...

God, after it.

Ron still woke up sometimes with yellow light blinking behind his eyelids and feeling that buzz of piercing, painful static running through him. The spell Harry had used to kill Voldemort was meant to take Harry's life, and use that power to kill Voldemort. Instead, it had absorbed Voldemort's life and tried to kill Harry with it. Dumbledore had explained it when Ron was still at the hospital recovering, but he'd understood very little of it. Something in the blood Harry and Voldemort shared had caused the spell to reverse. That, Hermione had explained to him later as she'd tucked St. Mungo's voilently purple blankets around him until his legs couldn't move, wasn't all that unusual, considering blood spells tended warp other spells frequently. What had been miraculous, as usual, was that Harry had survived the rebound - the echo of the spell.

No one was really sure why he had, even now, after all the research the Aurors had done to try to understand it. Many suggested it was the same spell - the one from Lily Potter all those years ago - that had saved Harry yet again, but Ron was skeptical. That spell had lost its power long ago, especially after Voldemort had taken some of Harry into himself. At least in his opinion. No, that answer had been too simple. Ron was half-inclined to think that even if Harry had accepted his death that night he had a desire to live just to spite those who thought he wouldn't. Harry's will was like that. He really used to be that strong.

Used to be.

Ron could remember the flash of yellow. It had felt evil and raw. Voldemort's life, then. No wonder.

It all had seemed rather tentative and grand to him then. Very real, of course, but perhaps something that wasn't _meant _to be explained. Now he wasn't so sure. Now he wished he'd gotten more answers from Dumbledore before he'd died. He wished he'd gotten more answers from Harry before he'd turned himself to seclusion.

Through it all, Harry remained a disappointment to everyone but perhaps Ron and Dumbledore. The public were let down; Harry refused to let himself become their hero. Hermione and the Weasleys were let down; Harry shut them out, for whatever reason. The Aurors were let down; not only did Harry refuse to join their ranks, but he'd also declined their pleas to let the Ministry study him.

Study him, like he was a specimen. Ron had understood when Harry had declined. He was sure he would have too. Harry was wrecked, and not what he used to be. The War, the spell that had backfired even as it worked, had taken some of the human from Harry. In exchange, he was given the curse of officially being the strongest wizard to ever live. It was the last thing he would have wanted, and Ron knew that. They all knew that.

To be Harry, now, couldn't be easy. Worse than it used to be. Worse than when they were in school and Draco would spend half his days quoting nauseatingly untrue or twisted articles about Harry from _The Daily Prophet_, and worse than when the students would spend all their time wondering and pointing and scowling at The Boy Who Lived. Worse now than when people simply _thought _that Harry Potter was a looney and a freak and a tragic hero.

Worse now because Harry really _was _a looney, a freak, and a tragic hero.


	3. Three

It was raining again, and the drops were echoing off the roof in annoying little _plunks _of noisy wetness that Ron used as an excuse to himself for his insomnia. The truth was that he could feel the painful vibrating in him again, and when he closed his eyes, he saw yellow, but that was a truth that he was better off lying to himself about. He turned his eyes to the window and watched the rain streak odd shadows down the glass for what was likely an hour before he gave up and slid out off bed.

The tile in the kitchen was horribly cold, but he didn't really notice. He was halfway to the refridgerator before he remembered the small flask of firewhiskey in the cupboard above the dinged metal sink. That would do.

He didn't bother with a glass, merely taking long gulps straight from the bottle, wincing at the flare of heat searing down his throat and thanking God that he didn't have to get to work in the morning.

Ron was halfway through the flask before he started to think of Harry again. He tipped the bottle once more, no longer aware of the fire in his mouth, throat and belly, and wondered what it must be like now. Harry lived in a simple, but ghastly huge house on a hill a few miles from Hogsmeade, in complete seclusion from the world. Ron had wondered when Harry bought it whether he'd gotten such a large home to counter living in a dusty, spider-infested (now _that _was a thought that made Ron's already tingling skin crawl) cupboard for a decade of his life. It was likely, in fact. Definite, he decided after another sip.

"I should visit, really." He'd said it aloud before the thought had even fully formed in his mind. Briefly a flash of Draco's face, pale and tense, when his own visit to the Potter residence was mentioned surfaced in Ron's head, but he briskly, drunkenly, pushed that way. Nonsense. Draco was Harry's tormentor in school, and a reformed Death Eater. Sure, Harry had forgiven him, and even become something one might call 'close' to Draco, but it was nothing compared to the bond of two best mates, and Ron had certainly always been his best mate.

Another glare of yellow behind heavy lids later, and Ron was fumbling with parchment and a quill, trying to pretend the throbbing in his left temple was not there as he scribbled lopsidedly on the paper.

_Harry -_

_I know it's been months now since my last owl, but I've been thinking of you. I've decided a visit to you wouldn't be a bad idea, and I wondered if I might be welcome, if only for a few days. I regret the distance between us lately and would hope_

He scratched a bit of it out, squinting to keep his eyes focused.

_Sorry we've fallen out of touch, and I was hoping I could come around for us to catch up properly._

_- Ron_

Satisfied, he folded the note up unevenly and stumbled out of the kitchen, cringing when he knocked over a table in the hallway on his way to the front room.

"Oi, Perri," Ron called thickly as he tapped the bottom of his tawny owl's cage. Perri hooted and peered at him with one bleary red eye. "I've got a letter for you."

Despite Perri's nips and claw-digs to make it clear he was less than happy with being woken up in the middle of the night to deliver a letter in the pouring rain, Ron insisted. Soon the owl was gone and Ron collapsed into bed once more, muttering to himself about the annoying _plunkplunkplunk _of the rain even as he dozed off.


End file.
